Category: Talking Points

Talking Points will be slightly grumpy, (hopefully) slightly insightful rants relating to gaming or possibly other topics. Talking Points articles are not meant to be gospel or my final word on a topic, but simply a discussion point I believe is worth raising.

Despite being “rants” Talking Points will not be angry, swear-laden or accusatory.

It’s that time of the year again when Video Games Are Bad, the latest argument being Video Games Are Boring, a piece I won’t critique too hard for fear of sounding rather mean. I don’t really mean this as a response to Brie in particular, but this mindset I keep seeing pop up. This just makes a nice catalyst.

But there’s one thing I have to pull apart here first. In their effort to introduce “non-gaming” friends into “gaming” the started with Journey (reasonable), then when Journey was too violent they eventually turned to suggesting Skyrim (I’m sorry what?!).

I know a lot of gamers can’t really imagine Journey being “violent”, but there are things that attack you. That’s scary. Not everyone wants scary. Not everyone wants adversity, especially for their very first experience. It’s a bit hard to emphasize with that if you started gaming in the 8-16 bit eras like myself, but if you step back, it’s not hard to find games less violent than Journey (AbyssRium, Beglitched, Noby Noby Boy, and those are just games I played literally yesterday).

I really can’t ignore the absurdity of suggesting Skyrim after Journey proved to be too violent, but at the same time I totally understand it. It shows an extremely, shall I say, “Core Gamer” mindset.

(This article is available in an expanded, podcast-style form as well, on YouTube.)

A common refrain when a fan game is taken down is that it’s within Nintendo’s rights. Do you know what else is within Nintendo’s rights? Sending DMCA takedowns to every single OC Remix track based directly on Nintendo’s music. What else is within Nintendo’s Legal Rights That Are Totally Always Okay To Enforce?

Say Nintendo read every article about Cosplay and sent a DMCA notice to have the pictures taken down and demanded that the cosplayer never again display or create a costume based on a Nintendo character. Is that cool with you? Because it’s not actually any different than fan games, legally speaking.

How about Nintendo sends DMCAs to the millions of pieces of Nintendo character fan art spread across Deviant Art, Pixiv, Twitter, Tumblr, everywhere? Because they could do that. Legally.

Remixes, fan art and yes, even cosplay are derivative works. The only legal difference between them and fan games is that corporations don’t go after them.

I’ve noticed an unfortunate thread of commentary on my Youtube videos, and more generally in the gaming public and fandom in general. And I’m getting tired of it, because not only is it personally exhausting to read, it’s that sort of insidious, self-propagating way of thinking that taints almost all discussion about entire topics.

The world of game criticism is a very hostile and silly place right now, and we could do a lot better by understanding our own biases and thinking about them just a bit. In the hopes of doing so, here’s some examples of some rather strange comments I got, insisting I hate things I explicitly state I liked in the same breath.

I’m angry. You see, recently a truly fantastic Metroid 2 fan recreation was released: AM2R. I played it for a live stream. It’s truly fantastic, and has an amazing amount of original work put into it, being far and away more than a “fan port” of the game.

But then it got taken down by everyone’s least favorite four letter word, a DMCA, straight from Nintendo. I’m very frustrated with Nintendo for the copyright claim, very frustrated the game was taken down (though torrent sites seem to be ensuring it will not be lost). But that’s not what I’m writing this article about.

I’m writing this because this conversation about copyright and fan projects is…the same as all conversations about fan projects. The conversation is full of ignorance, misunderstanding, and what I can only assume are deliberate bald-faced lies about what companies have to do to protect their copyright.

But the point of this article isn’t to explain why G2A is bad; if you’re not sold on that, click one of the many sources I’ve already provided. Lars Doucet recently did particularly good roundup article on why G2A is literally worse than piracy: “G2A, Piracy, and the Four Currencies”. I strongly recommend you read it before continuing if you are not yet aware of the depth of the problem G2A poses.

As a “Talking Points” (geddit I’m a spikeball cough) entry this will be a short little rant. Don’t take it too seriously but it is probably about something I find silly or frustrating.

Today on the way to work I witnessed an impressive sight. A car stopped at a right turn only, with a green light, simply…waiting. No traffic, no emergency vehicles, no reason to not turn. Yet, they didn’t turn. They waited out the whole green light, then the whole yellow light. Finally, when the light turned red, they turned right.

It was no ordinary display of idiocy. People mistakenly take a turn to find the lane is full, that’s understandable. But today’s idiot clearly knew what they were doing was wrong. And it wasn’t even convenient for them. They wasted their own time and effort sheerly in the pursuit of idiocy.

It’s a whole new level of being stupid. To do something on accident is one thing. To do something out of ignorance is understandable. But when one goes out of their way to produce something stupid, that is what I cannot abide by.